BERSIH March: Experience of a ‘Yellow Walker’

This is the full-colour leaflet distributed in mosques in the Klang valley to influence the Muslims not to take part in the peaceful Nov 10 rally. This leaflet bears no publisher and printer.Pengecut!

sharing my personal experience on the bersih gathering/march…from a brave Yellow Walker…“people should not be afraid of their governments, the governemts should be afraid of their people”…

precisely!…

when i got up approx 1100 hours on 10th october 2007, i know i will be part of the history in malaysia!…

just want to briefly share what i experienced in the bersih gathering/march which i attended with much enthusiasm!…

as most of you already know there are 4 meeting points for meet-up before we marched to dataran merdeka before we proceed to the palace to submit the memorandum to the king on asking for a massize reformation to the electoral roll…. i went to the sogo meeting point…

expecting the massive traffic out there… i took the public transport… i boarded the ktm komuter in kl sentral at approx 1145 hours… waited for at least 30 mins before the train actually moved an inch… apparently they have some ‘technical problems’ at the station in front… but, there was about 3 trains opposite the coach am in passed us by from the station in front of us!… ‘technical problems’ eh?!?… want to delay/deny us, say so lah… we understand the fear and uncertainties of certain people…🙂 …

reached sogo approx 1245 hours, not before going though tens of police personnel staring at you as if you are a criminal, took my lunch and walked around and more and more people can be seen… i knew this is gonna be huge, really huge!… police personnel were all over the place inside and outside sogo then and helicopter right above us drowning the noise of the people… a real low way of doing things eh?!?…

joined my group opposite sogo, which was only about 10 of us… had a drink with them.. changed into my xxxl yellow bersih t-shirt and voila… we marched towards the main entrance of sogo and greeted by roars and claps by hundreds of others, which was mainly pas supporters… made way for the 10 of us to be placed right in the middle of the group…. right after we arrived, one guy took over the meet-up with a prayer… at that particular time, the muhibbah thing struck me really hard… needless to say, the irritating helicopter which was flying really low ‘drown’ the prayers…

after the prayers, we started our march at approx 1400 hours with very gloomy looking sky above us!… minutes into our march just before the dbkl building on our right, it started pouring… came well prepared with plastic bags and a backpack to keep my stuffs dry….🙂 … fru set-up a barricade infront of us, they practically set up barricades surrounding the whole of dataran merdeka!… we then marched towards the main entrance of royal selangor club greeted by many others who was having their lunch there and the motorists opposite us and that basically kept us moving further in the heavy downpour!… we passed the masjid negara opposite us minutes later…. thousands of them came over to join us, if am not mistaken including some heavy weights too fm that meeting point, at that time the crowd grew to easily to at least 400 meters long…

at that particular time, i knew very much we are not heading to dataran merdeka, instead we will be marching towards the palace directly!…

as we were passing the chinese assembly hall, another group join us… as this particular time, the crowd grew to at least 600 meters long!… a sea of yellow can be seen when i looked back… at that time, the rain start slowing down…

as we were passing by public bank on our right and nearing the palace… thousands more joined the line… it was at this time i spotted a guy in crutches with a leg amputated, all soaked up, marching his way to the palace… this stunned me for a while thinking how can a person with one leg do this!.. shame one me when the first i heard about this bersih gathering/march, i was actually thinking and contemplating whether to go for it or not!… shame on me!… i have the utmost respect for that guy!… God bless him, whoever he is!…

we reached at the main entrance of the palace at approx 1500 hours… some heavy weights gave some short speeches… at approx 1530 hours or so, the memorandum were submitted to the king’s special assistant or to someone along that line… still drizzling at that time… met my eldest brother there who were also drenched in the rain, am surprised he actually came for it tho!…🙂 … i thought it was a joke when he told me he is coming!… my second nephew could not make it, although my eldest brother and myself very much want him to come and be exposed to all these things and to all the crap we are going through!…. he came by lrt… walked all the way fm central market.. understand fm him that particular trip he took was the last trip that the lrt goona stop in central market station… talk about ‘manipulation’ eh?!?…🙂 … he was stunned when he was fm the lrt he is in, looking down and saw seas of yellow marching.. as he put it… “it was a very nice sight”!… i would get goosebumps when i see that!… btw, understand from my brother that my eldest nephew’s friend stopped by police twice, when he was on his way for some frisbee competition/training, because he wore a yellow shirt!.. wtf?!?…

the whole things finished by approx 1600 hours… it was another long walk for both of us to get a cab home…

understand that there was approx 80 people arrested (probably for ‘formalities’) in masjid jamek meeting point… mainly pas supporters/unit amal people… water cannon, tear gas and chemical were sprayed/released!… until now (2245 hours on 10th november 2007) no concrete confirmation on this… we shall wait for the official reports/news in the next couple of days…

things i learnt fm this bersih gathering/march… in no particular order…

1) if you have the same vision and mission for a particular… race and religion does not matter, both this 2 issues won’t play a part in it…

2) this bersih gathering/march is indeed a very loud voice to the current ruling bn/umno rotten to the core government!…

3) there are people who are actually very afraid when they read about the news saying no permit given, fear of certain things, etc… but, they want things to be changed!…

4) no matter whatever ways they may be using to stop us fm attending this bersih gathering/march.. NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING can stop us!…

5) it’s very nice and comforting to see malaysia still have hope!…

6) it’s very nice and comforting to see people march arms in arms regardless who you may be!…

7) unit amal is very professional in handling things!…

8) there are people who love malaysia to bits!…

9) my love for the country went a step deeper!…

10) it’s good to expose yr kids to all these things!…

11) my parents and my immediate family members are very supportive of all these things, as they believe in wat the current rulling bn/umno rotten to the core government is doing is very wrong and one sided!…

12) the police created the extremely massive traffic jams all over the klang valley, not the people!…

13) the irritating/annoying sound of helicopters can work better than police car siren!…

14) kyros kebab in sogo is yummilicious!…🙂 …

15) it was nice to walk around sogo after such a long time, sogo used to be one of my favourite places to hang out after school!…

16) always have the interest in politics since primary school… if not for monetary issues for now, i WILL take the plunge into politics full time, of course with my parents’s blessings, which i think they will give me tho!…🙂 …

17) every little tiny help fm everyone, do make a different!…

18) this bersih gathering/march is not a political gathering/march.. no party flags, t-shirts, logo, etc… should be seen… we see nothing political in this bersih gathering/march… people can be very well discipline if it make sense to them tho!…

19) if am aab, i better have the biggest headache now tho!…

20) the chinese and indians in particular must be pro-active in making the country a better, cleaner, fairer and colour blind to live in!… i respect the malays in being very pro-active in these kinda gathering/march… nope, am not talking about those people fm the rotten to the core umno!…

21) kj is really no one.. he is just some dude fm kuwait, some datuk and datin’s son… graduated fm a well-known university, hooked up with aab’s daughter and voila… he is ‘someone’ now… also, he can certainly get along very well with power and money now tho!…

22) nazri may say… “this is not the majority, we have 27 million rakyat, only 40,000 turned up”!…

23) it will be interesting to hear mm’s point of view on this bersih gathering/march!…

Hopefully Sdr Aleyasak and those who were injured during the walk are alright.

I was at Masjid Jamek since 1 pm, and I can say that the Yellow Walkers was anything but retaliative/aggressive. These walkers only wanted to get from Point A to Point B without even trying to step on an ant. There were even Amal forces helping to direct and marshal the walk. And I don’t know why these FRU even thought of using their water cannon and tear gas out of a sudden on a totally peaceful walk…

What amazes me even more is that, even after all the provocations from these FRUs, the marches remained unprovoked and did not retaliate one bit.

Total number of arrests 34 – all released by 11pm; several more injured

When the final 10 of those arrested were released by the police at approximately 11pm last night (10 November 2007), the total count of arrests during the BERSIH rally was 34.

In SUARAM’s previous update at 9pm, 10 November 2007, there was a list of 24 names of those who were released and 5 who were still held. In addition to that list, SUARAM obtained names of 5 more individuals, who were still being held at that time.

* Names obtained by SUARAM after 9pm, therefore was not in the previous update.

In addition to the arrests there were also individuals reported to be injured and sent to hospital. One individual, identified as Aleyasak Hamid, suffered from a broken leg and was sent to the General Hospital, Kuala Lumpur (Hospital Kuala Lumpur).